They voted for Obama because the Democrat party has committed the most heinous ever act of racism by enabling their dependence on government simply to sustain a voting block. Instead of voting for more economic opportunity (by giving rich people more money to create jobs) they voted for more freebees...more handouts...thus further perpetuating dependence on government which locks them into voting against rich white guys who only want to see them succeed and live prosperous, happy lives free of the public dole, which will instill racial pride in their accomplishment.

daveUSMC:Does this mean we can stop whining about voter ID now?I mean everyone. STFU. It's neither the worst thing in the world since 3/5 and hosing off the Undesireables, nor absolutely necessary to protect the sacred rights of both Fartbongolian and Real American PatriotTM Voters. It is a stupid wedge issue with little relevance and negligable pratical impact.

Before voting against the [1965 Voting Rights] bill, Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, who had switched his party affiliation from Democrat to Republican in September 1964, eulogized the Senate as the "final resting place of the Constitution and the rule of law, for it is here that they will have been buried with shovels of emotion under piles of expediency, in the year of our Lord, 1965."

monoski:Lionel Mandrake: pre-November GOP: What can we do to suppress the black vote?

post-November GOP: Why do so few black people vote for us?

Romney's reception in North Philly was the best indicator of how many African American votes the GOP could anticipate. None!

While the GOP doesn't have to win the Black/Hispanic/Asian/Female/Urban/Educated vote they just need to keep it close. And reducing outward hostility to Blacks/HispanicsAsians might not increase the share of those votes, it will work in getting "Fiscally Conservative, Socially Liberal" white folks who've been morally offended by the GOP's blatant hostility to not only vote Republican, but to admit they vote Republican.

The big question, and it's why the GOP is having such difficutly, is can they do this while keeping their dominance with the Elderly/Rural/Confederate voters? I'm guessing the answer is no.

Yeah, it turns out that when you try to openly take away rights from people, they get upset and use those rights more. The more effective tactic is to make them not want to exercise those rights in the first place. See: guns, birth control, etc, etc.

Half the angry protesters around the country could be cured by letting them onto a stage with a microphone. Ensure the crowd remains silent and simply lets them speak. One at a time.

/a few comedians have done this to hecklers//mitch hedburg springs to mind, but there was another who did it even better. Can't think of the name.

js34603:Well I'm sure those trends will continue when the Dems run a white person in 2016.

Black voter turnout was bigger because the GOP made a concerted effort to suppress the black vote, and the black community knew it. If the GOP makes the same mistake again, the color of the Democratic nominee will be irrelevant.

The real question is will the black vote show up to vote Democrat again. Have they really taken an interest in politics, or just to prove their last two votes weren't racially motivated. So how do you measure if the voter suppression worked, many of the measures were delayed until the 2014 election cycle.

/I realize I would really hate to hear this being pointed out by the opposing party.

This is what "intelligent conservatives" of the 1960s actually believed:

Mr. Kilpatrick also took aim at the 1965 Voting Rights Act in the April 20, 1965 issue. "Must We Repeal the Constitution to Give the Negro the Vote?" he asked, accusing the bill's supporters of "perverting the Constitution." He thought certain blacks should be given the right to vote but notes, "Over most of this century, the great bulk of Southern Negroes have been genuinely unqualified for the franchise." He also defended segregation as rational for Southerners. "Segregation is a fact, and more than a fact; it is a state of mind. It lies in the Southern subconscious next to man's most elementary instincts, for self-preservation, for survival, for the untroubled continuation of a not intolerable way of life."Mr. Buckley softened his position on civil rights in the 1960s but to a point that would still be intolerable for conservatives today. In a column written five months before the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and called "The Issue at Selma," he called for giving blacks the vote but perhaps restricting the franchise to high school graduates. He sympathized with the Southern position writing, "In much of the South, what is so greatly feared is irresponsible, mobocratic rule, and it is a fear not easily dissipated, because it is well-grounded that if the entire Negro population in the South were suddenly given the vote, and were to use it as a bloc, and pursuant to directives handed down by some of the more demagogic leaders, chaos would ensue." He also warned of "a suddenly enfranchised, violently embittered Negro population which will take the vote and wield it as an instrument of vengeance, shaking down the walls of Jericho even to their foundations, and reawakening the terrible genocidal antagonisms that scarred the Southern psyche during the days of Reconstruction."

While we are discussing taking the right to vote away from people I want to add a republican line I heard once. I believe it went something like this: This one vote per person business has got to stop. The idea that my vote can be cancelled out by some welfare queen who is just gaming the system by having 6 kids with 4 different father's is just outrageous. Only people who hold down decent jobs and don't receive any welfare should be allowed to vote.

daveUSMC:Does this mean we can stop whining about voter ID now?I mean everyone. STFU. It's neither the worst thing in the world since 3/5 and hosing off the Undesireables, nor absolutely necessary to protect the sacred rights of both Fartbongolian and Real American PatriotTM Voters. It is a stupid wedge issue with little relevance and negligable pratical impact.

zappaisfrank:They voted for Obama because the Democrat party has committed the most heinous ever act of racism by enabling their dependence on government simply to sustain a voting block. Instead of voting for more economic opportunity (by giving rich people more money to create jobs) they voted for more freebees...more handouts...thus further perpetuating dependence on government which locks them into voting against rich white guys who only want to see them succeed and live prosperous, happy lives free of the public dole, which will instill racial pride in their accomplishment.

THIS is what Republicans really believe...

I think the real test will be whether the black vote comes out in the same numbers when it's a white guy running as a Democrat. I know we all want to believe that we are seeing an upswell of socially conscious, enlightened and informed politically active black voters, but I have a sinking feeling that we really just have a lot more black people motivated to vote for the black guy, and a well-oiled political machine capable of getting them to the booths. Something akin to the Irish Catholic vote for JFK. I think there is little risk that blacks will suddenly start voting Republican in 2014 or 2016, but I think it highly probable that black voter turnout will devolve right back down to pre-Obama levels.

And since it has become clear that the Democrats NEED that additional voting block to reliably win against Republicans, that shoudl make everyone a bit nervous about upcoming years. Republicans don't need to convert blacks and hispanics to vote for them so much as they need them NOT to be motivated to go out and vote.

Gergesa:While we are discussing taking the right to vote away from people I want to add a republican line I heard once. I believe it went something like this: This one vote per person business has got to stop. The idea that my vote can be cancelled out by some welfare queen who is just gaming the system by having 6 kids with 4 different father's is just outrageous. Only people who hold down decent jobs and don't receive any welfare should be allowed to vote.

/I believe it was roughly along those lines.

I'm ok with that as long as we create an intelligence, education, and means test also. As a high earner with a master's degree my vote should be worth a hell of a lot more than some yokel that drives a lifted pickup.

Gergesa:While we are discussing taking the right to vote away from people I want to add a republican line I heard once. I believe it went something like this: This one vote per person business has got to stop. The idea that my vote can be cancelled out by some welfare queen who is just gaming the system by having 6 kids with 4 different father's is just outrageous. Only people who hold down decent jobs and don't receive any welfare should be allowed to vote.

/I believe it was roughly along those lines.

It would certainly be interesting to see the electoral effects of not allowing retirees to vote.

BojanglesPaladin:zappaisfrank: They voted for Obama because the Democrat party has committed the most heinous ever act of racism by enabling their dependence on government simply to sustain a voting block. Instead of voting for more economic opportunity (by giving rich people more money to create jobs) they voted for more freebees...more handouts...thus further perpetuating dependence on government which locks them into voting against rich white guys who only want to see them succeed and live prosperous, happy lives free of the public dole, which will instill racial pride in their accomplishment.

THIS is what Republicans really believe...

I think the real test will be whether the black vote comes out in the same numbers when it's a white guy running as a Democrat. I know we all want to believe that we are seeing an upswell of socially conscious, enlightened and informed politically active black voters, but I have a sinking feeling that we really just have a lot more black people motivated to vote for the black guy, and a well-oiled political machine capable of getting them to the booths. Something akin to the Irish Catholic vote for JFK. I think there is little risk that blacks will suddenly start voting Republican in 2014 or 2016, but I think it highly probable that black voter turnout will devolve right back down to pre-Obama levels.

And since it has become clear that the Democrats NEED that additional voting block to reliably win against Republicans, that shoudl make everyone a bit nervous about upcoming years. Republicans don't need to convert blacks and hispanics to vote for them so much as they need them NOT to be motivated to go out and vote.

Like forcing them to re-register after voter roll purges or understaffing polling places in urban areas to make the wait 4hrs?

HighOnCraic:r. Kilpatrick also took aim at the 1965 Voting Rights Act in the April 20, 1965 issue. "Must We Repeal the Constitution to Give the Negro the Vote?" he asked, accusing the bill's supporters of "perverting the Constitution." He thought certain blacks should be given the right to vote but notes, "Over most of this century, the great bulk of Southern Negroes have been genuinely unqualified for the franchise." He also defended segregation as rational for Southerners. "Segregation is a fact, and more than a fact; it is a state of mind. It lies in the Southern subconscious next to man's most elementary instincts, for self-preservation, for survival, for the untroubled continuation of a not intolerable way of life."Mr. Buckley softened his position on civil rights in the 1960s but to a point that would still be intolerable for conservatives today. In a column written five months before the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and called "The Issue at Selma," he called for giving blacks the vote but perhaps restricting the franchise to high school graduates. He sympathized with the Southern position writing, "In much of the South, what is so greatly feared is irresponsible, mobocratic rule, and it is a fear not easily dissipated, because it is well-grounded that if the entire Negro population in the South were suddenly given the vote, and were to use it as a bloc, and pursuant to directives handed down by some of the more demagogic leaders, chaos would ensue." He also warned of "a suddenly enfranchised, violently embittered Negro population which will take the vote and wield it as an instrument of vengeance, shaking down the walls of Jericho even to their foundations, and reawakening the terrible genocidal antagonisms that scarred the Southern psyche during the days of Reconstruction."

Aside from the archaic use of the word "negro" and time-period specific attitudes, could you articulate which parts of this you think are wrong? For instance, do you think it is wrong to want a voter to at least have a high school education? Do you NOT think that the black vote is currently a "bloc" being weilded as an instrument by a particular political party?

BojanglesPaladin:HighOnCraic: r. Kilpatrick also took aim at the 1965 Voting Rights Act in the April 20, 1965 issue. "Must We Repeal the Constitution to Give the Negro the Vote?" he asked, accusing the bill's supporters of "perverting the Constitution." He thought certain blacks should be given the right to vote but notes, "Over most of this century, the great bulk of Southern Negroes have been genuinely unqualified for the franchise." He also defended segregation as rational for Southerners. "Segregation is a fact, and more than a fact; it is a state of mind. It lies in the Southern subconscious next to man's most elementary instincts, for self-preservation, for survival, for the untroubled continuation of a not intolerable way of life."Mr. Buckley softened his position on civil rights in the 1960s but to a point that would still be intolerable for conservatives today. In a column written five months before the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and called "The Issue at Selma," he called for giving blacks the vote but perhaps restricting the franchise to high school graduates. He sympathized with the Southern position writing, "In much of the South, what is so greatly feared is irresponsible, mobocratic rule, and it is a fear not easily dissipated, because it is well-grounded that if the entire Negro population in the South were suddenly given the vote, and were to use it as a bloc, and pursuant to directives handed down by some of the more demagogic leaders, chaos would ensue." He also warned of "a suddenly enfranchised, violently embittered Negro population which will take the vote and wield it as an instrument of vengeance, shaking down the walls of Jericho even to their foundations, and reawakening the terrible genocidal antagonisms that scarred the Southern psyche during the days of Reconstruction."

Aside from the archaic use of the word "negro" and time-period specific attitudes, could you articulate which parts of this you think are wrong? For instance, do you think it ...

Pretty sure you are just doing some trolling, but how about...It's wrong that these standards were only being applied to some people, based solely on the color of their skin? That author didn't say "oh well we also should disenfranchise any whites that do not have a high school eduation".

BojanglesPaladin:HighOnCraic: r. Kilpatrick also took aim at the 1965 Voting Rights Act in the April 20, 1965 issue. "Must We Repeal the Constitution to Give the Negro the Vote?" he asked, accusing the bill's supporters of "perverting the Constitution." He thought certain blacks should be given the right to vote but notes, "Over most of this century, the great bulk of Southern Negroes have been genuinely unqualified for the franchise." He also defended segregation as rational for Southerners. "Segregation is a fact, and more than a fact; it is a state of mind. It lies in the Southern subconscious next to man's most elementary instincts, for self-preservation, for survival, for the untroubled continuation of a not intolerable way of life."Mr. Buckley softened his position on civil rights in the 1960s but to a point that would still be intolerable for conservatives today. In a column written five months before the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and called "The Issue at Selma," he called for giving blacks the vote but perhaps restricting the franchise to high school graduates. He sympathized with the Southern position writing, "In much of the South, what is so greatly feared is irresponsible, mobocratic rule, and it is a fear not easily dissipated, because it is well-grounded that if the entire Negro population in the South were suddenly given the vote, and were to use it as a bloc, and pursuant to directives handed down by some of the more demagogic leaders, chaos would ensue." He also warned of "a suddenly enfranchised, violently embittered Negro population which will take the vote and wield it as an instrument of vengeance, shaking down the walls of Jericho even to their foundations, and reawakening the terrible genocidal antagonisms that scarred the Southern psyche during the days of Reconstruction."

Aside from the archaic use of the word "negro" and time-period specific attitudes, could you articulate which parts of this you think are wrong? For instance, do you think it ...

Let's start with using the fear of white Southerners to justify denying blacks the right to vote.

Oh, heck, if you think there's nothing wrong with that way of thinking, go ahead with your bad self.

I think Republicans should continue thinking that this type of argument is rational. This is a great method of outreach.

HighOnCraic:This is what "intelligent conservatives" of the 1960s actually believed:

Mr. Kilpatrick also took aim at the 1965 Voting Rights Act in the April 20, 1965 issue. "Must We Repeal the Constitution to Give the Negro the Vote?" he asked, accusing the bill's supporters of "perverting the Constitution." He thought certain blacks should be given the right to vote but notes, "Over most of this century, the great bulk of Southern Negroes have been genuinely unqualified for the franchise." He also defended segregation as rational for Southerners. "Segregation is a fact, and more than a fact; it is a state of mind. It lies in the Southern subconscious next to man's most elementary instincts, for self-preservation, for survival, for the untroubled continuation of a not intolerable way of life."Mr. Buckley softened his position on civil rights in the 1960s but to a point that would still be intolerable for conservatives today. In a column written five months before the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and called "The Issue at Selma," he called for giving blacks the vote but perhaps restricting the franchise to high school graduates. He sympathized with the Southern position writing, "In much of the South, what is so greatly feared is irresponsible, mobocratic rule, and it is a fear not easily dissipated, because it is well-grounded that if the entire Negro population in the South were suddenly given the vote, and were to use it as a bloc, and pursuant to directives handed down by some of the more demagogic leaders, chaos would ensue." He also warned of "a suddenly enfranchised, violently embittered Negro population which will take the vote and wield it as an instrument of vengeance, shaking down the walls of Jericho even to their foundations, and reawakening the terrible genocidal antagonisms that scarred the Southern psyche during the days of Reconstruction."

http://www.amren.com/news/2012/04/the-decline-of-national-review/

That actually sounds more like what happened to White Southern America.

What's really funny is the hard line against education after this. The story I heard (DNRTFA, so I didn't get it there), was that black churches in Florida basically stood on the sidewalk and taught every single black person they could find the laws, so that any black person on the street could quote you section and chapter of the laws, what "voter ID" they actually needed, when to vote, how to vote, so on and so forth. They ended up turning the black population in Florida into the most electorally educated population in the U.S.

Any surprise at all the calls about elitist education? The underclass might start thinking for themselves.

nocturnal001:It's wrong that these standards were only being applied to some people, based solely on the color of their skin? That author didn't say "oh well we also should disenfranchise any whites that do not have a high school eduation".

I beliieve you will find that Buckly DID favor a minimum educational standard for all voters.

HighOnCraic:Let's start with using the fear of white Southerners to justify denying blacks the right to vote.

Let's not. There is nothing to be served by re-fighting a political battle from another era that is long since over. Yes, there are vestiges today, but this is not that.

Do you think it is wrong to want a voter to at least have a high school education? Do you NOT think that the black vote is currently a "bloc" being weilded as an instrument by a particular political party?

BojanglesPaladin:Do you NOT think that the black vote is currently a "bloc" being weilded as an instrument by a particular political party?

That's because so many noteworthy conservative leaders spouted things like: "Segregation is a fact, and more than a fact; it is a state of mind. It lies in the Southern subconscious next to man's most elementary instincts, for self-preservation, for survival, for the untroubled continuation of a not intolerable way of life."

BojanglesPaladin:zappaisfrank: They voted for Obama because the Democrat party has committed the most heinous ever act of racism by enabling their dependence on government simply to sustain a voting block. Instead of voting for more economic opportunity (by giving rich people more money to create jobs) they voted for more freebees...more handouts...thus further perpetuating dependence on government which locks them into voting against rich white guys who only want to see them succeed and live prosperous, happy lives free of the public dole, which will instill racial pride in their accomplishment.

THIS is what Republicans really believe...

I think the real test will be whether the black vote comes out in the same numbers when it's a white guy running as a Democrat. I know we all want to believe that we are seeing an upswell of socially conscious, enlightened and informed politically active black voters, but I have a sinking feeling that we really just have a lot more black people motivated to vote for the black guy, and a well-oiled political machine capable of getting them to the booths. Something akin to the Irish Catholic vote for JFK. I think there is little risk that blacks will suddenly start voting Republican in 2014 or 2016, but I think it highly probable that black voter turnout will devolve right back down to pre-Obama levels.

My impression is that black voters (like most Democratic voters) aren't super enamored with Mr. Obama. But it was clear that Romney would be a lot worse. But, since there was a lot of noise around GOP attempts to suppress the vote, black voters were pissed off, and weren't going to let them get away with it, so they turned out in record numbers.

HighOnCraic:And it's not like James Kilpatrick was some fringe figure in the conservative movement.

I don't believe anyone said he was. But again, that was literaly a lifetime ago. I'm not interested in re-fighting a political battle from another era that is long since over. Yes, there are vestiges today, but this is not that.

Zasteva:But it was clear that Romney would be a lot worse. But, since there was a lot of noise around GOP attempts to suppress the vote, black voters were pissed off, and weren't going to let them get away with it, so they turned out in record numbers

Except that black voter turn-out was less in 2008 than in 2004, wasn't it? MORE blacks came out to vote for Obama BEFORE the Teabagger nonsense, didn't they?

Dinki:js34603: Well I'm sure those trends will continue when the Dems run a white person in 2016.

Black voter turnout was bigger because the GOP made a concerted effort to suppress the black vote, and the black community knew it. If the GOP makes the same mistake again, the color of the Democratic nominee will be irrelevant.

BojanglesPaladin:I think the real test will be whether the black vote comes out in the same numbers when it's a white guy running as a Democrat.

Not really. Obama's GOTV efforts were leagues better than anyone before him. If the same (or continuously improved) set-up is retained for the Democratic nominee for 2016, it could be comparable, but I doubt it will be offered for use for any candidate during the primary, which is where a lot of the set-up work for the general is done (or, was, for Obama, in both 2008 and 2012).

BojanglesPaladin:HighOnCraic: And it's not like James Kilpatrick was some fringe figure in the conservative movement.

I don't believe anyone said he was. But again, that was literaly a lifetime ago. I'm not interested in re-fighting a political battle from another era that is long since over. Yes, there are vestiges today, but this is not that.

That's funny, didn't some Republican just recently play the "Look to the past at the heroic acts of Republican civil rights activists in the early 1900s!" card as a way of reaching out to black voters? Isn't "We're the Party of Lincoln!" the standard response from Republicans when racial issues get brought up. I guess only certain parts of the past should be discussed. . .

BojanglesPaladin:HighOnCraic: r. Kilpatrick also took aim at the 1965 Voting Rights Act in the April 20, 1965 issue. "Must We Repeal the Constitution to Give the Negro the Vote?" he asked, accusing the bill's supporters of "perverting the Constitution." He thought certain blacks should be given the right to vote but notes, "Over most of this century, the great bulk of Southern Negroes have been genuinely unqualified for the franchise." He also defended segregation as rational for Southerners. "Segregation is a fact, and more than a fact; it is a state of mind. It lies in the Southern subconscious next to man's most elementary instincts, for self-preservation, for survival, for the untroubled continuation of a not intolerable way of life."Mr. Buckley softened his position on civil rights in the 1960s but to a point that would still be intolerable for conservatives today. In a column written five months before the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and called "The Issue at Selma," he called for giving blacks the vote but perhaps restricting the franchise to high school graduates. He sympathized with the Southern position writing, "In much of the South, what is so greatly feared is irresponsible, mobocratic rule, and it is a fear not easily dissipated, because it is well-grounded that if the entire Negro population in the South were suddenly given the vote, and were to use it as a bloc, and pursuant to directives handed down by some of the more demagogic leaders, chaos would ensue." He also warned of "a suddenly enfranchised, violently embittered Negro population which will take the vote and wield it as an instrument of vengeance, shaking down the walls of Jericho even to their foundations, and reawakening the terrible genocidal antagonisms that scarred the Southern psyche during the days of Reconstruction."

Aside from the archaic use of the word "negro" and time-period specific attitudes, could you articulate which parts of this you think are wrong? For instance, do you think it ...

Wow. you really went there. Well let's start with this: He was afraid that "the Negro", if given the franchise, would "take revenge" for Jim Crow laws that relgated them to second class status legally in the south and would take an axe to such legal edifices root and branch...well, DUH. That's what democracy is FOR, after all, creating laws amenable to the MAJORITYof the population.

And why is it that people only seem to worry about bloc voting and manipulation by demagogues when it is blacks doing the voting? The poltical history of the American south is RIFE with demagogues who manipulated white mobs into voting en masse for them (does the name Huey P. Long. or George Wallace ring a bell?). But suddenly it's a problem if blacks do it?

And if you have similar interests to other people,isn't it likely that you will vote the same way they do? If southern Whites hadn't gone out of thier way to MAKE black voters a bloc, by deciding their skin color was the most important thing about them and classifying them, and denying them rights and privileges on its basis, then maybe blacks wouldn't all feel a soldiarity with one another based on that skin color, neh?

Neeek:Not really. Obama's GOTV efforts were leagues better than anyone before him. If the same (or continuously improved) set-up is retained for the Democratic nominee for 2016, it could be comparable,

I agree that Obama's vote machine (which will definately continue past his preseidency) will have an impact, but I think it's worth noting what this analysis said:

"The 2012 data suggest Romney was a particularly weak Republican candidate, unable to motivate white voters let alone attract significant black or Latino support. Obama's personal appeal and the slowly improving economy helped overcome doubts and spur record levels of minority voters in a way that may not be easily replicated for Democrats soon.Romney would have erased Obama's nearly 5 million-vote victory margin and narrowly won the popular vote if voters had turned out as they did in 2004, according to Frey's analysis. Then, white turnout was slightly higher and black voting lower.

BojanglesPaladin:Do you NOT think that the black vote is currently a "bloc" being weilded as an instrument by a particular political party?

Hmmm . . . How did that happen?

"From now on, the Republicans are never going to get more than 10 to 20 percent of the Negro vote and they don't need any more than that...but Republicans would be shortsighted if they weakened enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. The more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans. That's where the votes are. Without that prodding from the blacks, the whites will backslide into their old comfortable arrangement with the local Democrats."

"From Day One, Nixon and I talked about creating a new majority," Buchanan told me recently, sitting in the library of his Greek-revival house in McLean, Virginia, on a secluded lane bordering the fenced grounds of the Central Intelligence Agency. "What we talked about, basically, was shearing off huge segments of F.D.R.'s New Deal coalition, which L.B.J. had held together: Northern Catholic ethnics and Southern Protestant conservatives-what we called the Daley-Rizzo Democrats in the North and, frankly, the Wallace Democrats in the South." Buchanan grew up in Washington, D.C., among the first group-men like his father, an accountant and a father of nine, who had supported Roosevelt but also revered Joseph McCarthy. The Southerners were the kind of men whom Nixon whipped into a frenzy one night in the fall of 1966, at the Wade Hampton Hotel, in Columbia, South Carolina. Nixon, who was then a partner in a New York law firm, had travelled there with Buchanan on behalf of Republican congressional candidates. Buchanan recalls that the room was full of sweat, cigar smoke, and rage; the rhetoric, which was about patriotism and law and order, "burned the paint off the walls." As they left the hotel, Nixon said, "This is the future of this Party, right here in the South."Nixon was coldly mixing and pouring volatile passions. Although he was careful to renounce the extreme fringe of Birchites and racists, his means to power eventually became the end. Buchanan gave me a copy of a seven-page confidential memorandum-"A little raw for today," he warned-that he had written for Nixon in 1971, under the heading "Dividing the Democrats." Drawn up with an acute understanding of the fragilities and fault lines in "the Old Roosevelt Coalition," it recommended that the White House "exacerbate the ideological division" between the Old and New Left by praising Democrats who supported any of Nixon's policies; highlight "the elitism and quasi-anti-Americanism of the National Democratic Party"; nominate for the Supreme Court a Southern strict constructionist who would divide Democrats regionally; use abortion and parochial-school aid to deepen the split between Catholics and social liberals; elicit white working-class support with tax relief and denunciations of welfare. Finally, the memo recommended exploiting racial tensions among Democrats. "Bumper stickers calling for black Presidential and especially Vice-Presidential candidates should be spread out in the ghettoes of the country," Buchanan wrote. "We should do what is within our power to have a black nominated for Number Two, at least at the Democratic National Convention." Such gambits, he added, could "cut the Democratic Party and country in half; my view is that we would have far the larger half."

Dinki:js34603: Well I'm sure those trends will continue when the Dems run a white person in 2016.

Black voter turnout was bigger because the GOP made a concerted effort to suppress the black vote, and the black community knew it. If the GOP makes the same mistake again, the color of the Democratic nominee will be irrelevant.

Magorn:And why is it that people only seem to worry about bloc voting and manipulation by demagogues when it is blacks doing the voting?

That is not my experience. I think bloc voting based on anything is dangerous to democracy. That being said, is there another voting block that divides exactly on race lines that reliably votes 95% for a particular political party?

Ha! Black + latino vote on the upswing while white voters are decreasing.

It's gonna be a long decade or so for the GOP. Either they implode or someone gets their head on straight and say "Y'know, if we actually stopped talking out of both sides of our mouth when it comes to minorities, some of them would actually vote for us."

/doubt it//my money's on them imploding

THat assumes that the Black + Latino voting block continues in mid-terms and for other candidates.

I now how it happened. That does not make it a good thing. And while we could argue about just how "helpful" 60 years of Democratic allegience has been for the African American community, that is not the to[ic I am discussing.

The question to you is whether he was WRONG when he predicted that the black vote would become a solid voting block automatically at the disposal of a particualr political party. I think we can look at the last few decades of voting, loong before the teabaggers, and before Obama and see that it has become exactly that.

And do you think it is wrong to want a voter to at least have a high school education?

HighOnCraic:That's funny, didn't some Republican just recently play the "Look to the past at the heroic acts of Republican civil rights activists in the early 1900s!" card as a way of reaching out to black voters? Isn't "We're the Party of Lincoln!" the standard response from Republicans when racial issues get brought up. I guess only certain parts of the past should be discussed. . .

I don't know. You should probably take that up with some Republicans. I simply asked you some relatively simple questions to better understand your position. You keep quoting dead people.

BojanglesPaladin:Magorn: And why is it that people only seem to worry about bloc voting and manipulation by demagogues when it is blacks doing the voting?

That is not my experience. I think bloc voting based on anything is dangerous to democracy. That being said, is there another voting block that divides exactly on race lines that reliably votes 95% for a particular political party?

It's less important to find another such bloc as it is to realize WHY it is such a unified front.

According to people like Ben Carson (M.D.!), it's because black voters are too dumb to realize they're being played by Democrats. According to Democrats, it's because the GOP favors policies that disproportionately impact their communities (as well as being closet racists, sometimes noncloseted).

But this is a really tricky issue. Lotta ins, lotta outs, what-have-yous...

Gergesa:While we are discussing taking the right to vote away from people I want to add a republican line I heard once. I believe it went something like this: This one vote per person business has got to stop. The idea that my vote can be cancelled out by some welfare queen who is just gaming the system by having 6 kids with 4 different father's is just outrageous. Only people who hold down decent jobs and don't receive any welfare should be allowed to vote.

The duty to pay taxes -- the obligation to put earning into the revenue pot before one can vote on how it is used -- has vanished in America. The sorts of taxes which once made up the bulk of federal revenue were transactional and proportional. This did not mean that the wealthy did not still pay a larger share of the tax burden than the poor, but it meant that the relative burden on all Americans was about the same. One consequence of that was that all Americans had a more or less equal interest in prudent spending, fiscal solvency, and honest appropriations. Taxation was linked to representation in the same way that representation was linked to taxation.

What we have today is something horribly different. An implicit acceptance of Marxist dogma infests political thinking. The rich are rich on the backs of the poor, this reasoning goes, so the poor have the right, essentially, to expropriate the money of the rich by use of greater voting power. Politicians, of course, luxuriate in this foul myth; it lets them buy votes and to pay for those votes with the money of producers.

Honesty would require, instead, that the unproductive pay the productive -- that is, that the ones who sweat and prosper be given money by those who sloth and panhandle. Men like Andrew Carnegie, Sam Walton, and Howard Hughes created far more wealth in America than they would ever consume. Historical foundations of American government, however, do not see the wisdom in or the need for that redistribution of wealth from consumers to creators.

In much the same spirit, the property qualifications of voting have been progressively evaporated in American states to the point that even modest property barriers to voting have now been banished. Even a head tax, or "Poll Tax," to insure that voters have at least some general, rather than selfish, interest in how tax monies are spent, has been constitutionally banned.

Paying taxes, like serving in a posse or a militia or serving on a jury, has been a minimal required duty for the right to participate in our representative democracy. Simply being bound by our laws, or worse, "serving" our government by being a politician or voting in elections, takes a right and mystically transforms that right into a duty.

The only solution to our current political woes is to connect the right to vote with a duty to pay taxes. Voting other people's money into your own pocket is not just bad government; it is a sin. It is stealing, and it is coveting. What we see in the ugly surrealism of Occupy Wall Street and sibling demons is not so much dumb, destructive politics as the glorification of wicked intent, and that is intolerable.

BojanglesPaladin:That is not my experience. I think bloc voting based on anything is dangerous to democracy. That being said, is there another voting block that divides exactly on race lines that reliably votes 95% for a particular political party?

Obviously, it's because the blacks are the REAL racists, not members of the Republican Party.

I now how it happened. That does not make it a good thing. And while we could argue about just how "helpful" 60 years of Democratic allegience has been for the African American community, that is not the to[ic I am discussing.

The question to you is whether he was WRONG when he predicted that the black vote would become a solid voting block automatically at the disposal of a particualr political party. I think we can look at the last few decades of voting, loong before the teabaggers, and before Obama and see that it has become exactly that.

And do you think it is wrong to want a voter to at least have a high school education?

HighOnCraic: That's funny, didn't some Republican just recently play the "Look to the past at the heroic acts of Republican civil rights activists in the early 1900s!" card as a way of reaching out to black voters? Isn't "We're the Party of Lincoln!" the standard response from Republicans when racial issues get brought up. I guess only certain parts of the past should be discussed. . .

I don't know. You should probably take that up with some Republicans. I simply asked you some relatively simple questions to better understand your position. You keep quoting dead people.

I was citing Rand Paul's visit to Howard University. As far as I know, he's still alive, and the event happened fairly recently.

I don't recall conservatives coming up with the idea of a high school diploma as a necessity for voting until black Southerners began marching for civil rights.

Satanic_Hamster:BojanglesPaladin: That is not my experience. I think bloc voting based on anything is dangerous to democracy. That being said, is there another voting block that divides exactly on race lines that reliably votes 95% for a particular political party?

Obviously, it's because the blacks are the REAL racists, not members of the Republican Party.

So very, very concerned. So much so that I'm concerned for him. That much concern might eat a man up inside. Turn him into a bitter tortured shell of a man that has nothing left going for him but trolling on the internet.